Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a rhubarb plant and aparantly they leaves make a decent insect spray, any idea's on how this will play with the fish?

I'm trialing it on my dirt garden first i'll let you know how effective it is

Never heard of it before Timmy... let us know how it goes.

I have heard rhubarb leaves are poisonous, never used it as a home brew spray tho

Timmy,
Please keep us informed of your results.
Tony

I have rhubarb growing in one of the chook pens and they sometimes rip the leaves off and I assume eat them. We still have some chooks left though. They didn't all die, just the odd one but I think that is old age.
Maybe they are poisonous, just not deadly. Maybe it is and old wives tale.

poisonous to humans does not mean poisonous to other animals

Maybe the toxins in the rhubarb only affect mammals, or only humans???

I hope they affect insects though.

How are you preparing the rhubarb leaves and applying the "extract"?

Try this Tony/Timmy...

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/rhubarb-uses.html

and here's the scientific blurb.....

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/rhubarb-poison.html

See it can cause kidney stones... do you eat a lot of rhubarb Jaymie?

no, thanks Rupe

rhubarb leaves are definately poisonous.
there's plenty of warnings out there to keep it out of reach of livestock/pets as it will cause kidney failure if they eat too much of it. it will cause kidney stones in humans if ingested regularly because it is a catalyst for calcium crystals (if you've had kidney stones you know this is bad bad bad bad bad...).

i wonder if produce sprayed with it needs to be washed throughly, or if the toxin breaks down quickly

my g/f just harvested some tomatoes, and she said both the pyrethium sprayed and rhubarb sprayed plants had no holes bored in them, so it looks promising.
next to determine if the rhubarb spray effects the fish. i wonder how i go about that without risking my whole system

Maybe take one out into a small bowl and then spray a little in the bowl..

It killed a mongrel wombat dead at my dad's farm. Damn thing kept getting into the garden, until the only thing left to eat was rhubarb.

Works well as an insecticide, my Mum uses it a lot, but I wouldn't get it anywhere near my fish if I were you.

some one take a hit for the team and give a fish some rhubarb water.

most people think that it is the oxalic acid that is the mammalian poison in rhubarb but the LD50 in actual rhubarb leaves would be about 5kg there is mention that there is a as yet un identified poison contained in them.

Fish might react completely different. tomatoes leaves are meant to be bad if ingested but fish can eat them no worries

i'm buying some more cheap goldfish this weekend. i will test rhubarb water out on one during the week. I'll give him a worst case scenario dose that would never happen in a real AP system. say 200ml in a 20L tub.
fingers crossed the poor bugger lives.

also, how long does oxalic acid last? does it break down, will it accumulate in the water/ fish? From what i've read it appears to only last 2 days